ENGL 230

ENGL 230: British and Commonwealth Literature I

Prerequisites: ENGL 111.

Credit Hours: (3)

Traces British literary history from its origins until the end of the eighteenth century. Focusing on significant literary works and authors, it examines the literary genres, periods, and traditions that shaped a national literature in early Britain and the Commonwealth.

Note(s): Humanistic & Artistic Inquiry course.

Content

This course provides General Education students and English majors a solid foundation in the development of British and Commonwealth literature from its beginnings until the end of the eighteenth century. To this end, students will read a wide range of representative primary texts composed during these centuries. They may also read historical, biographical, and cultural sources to clarify the forces that helped shape individual texts, writers, traditions, genres, and literary periods throughout the early development of British literature.

Detailed Description of Conduct of Course

ENGL 230 uses a wide variety of instructional strategies which may include any number of the following: lecture; discussion; web-enhanced instruction; collaborative group work; individual or group student reports to elucidate primary texts or pertinent historical, biographical and cultural contexts; individual or group student creative presentations on course material; informal writing activities such as in-class focused writing exercises, readers’ logs, journals or discussion questions; audio-visual resources on literary works and authors as well as pertinent contexts; library instructional workshops to reinforce students’ information literacy and knowledge of resources available; peer writing groups on drafts of essays; individual or group conferences with the instructor on drafts of essays.

Student Learning Outcomes

Learning Goal:
To examine the context and interactions of British and Commonwealth culture(s) and/or behavior(s) on literature to the end of the 18th century.

This course introduces students to a variety of historical, cultural, and social contexts for British and Commonwealth literature from the medieval period to the end of the 18th century. Students examine the ways that cultural contexts and interactions helped to form literary genres, periods, and traditions that shaped a national literature in early Britain, such as linguistic changes across the periods, the differences between chivalric and heroic codes, and political events such as the Interregnum and the Restoration.

Learning Outcome 1: Students will describe basic concepts in artistic or humanistic analysis.

Learning Outcome 1 is fulfilled through the following goals and objectives of the course:

identify and discuss significant developments, trends and movements in British and Commonwealth literature from its beginnings to the end of the eighteenth century
identify and discuss some of the central thematic and aesthetic concerns of the centuries covered, with particular attention to literary periods and the development of literary genres

Throughout the course, students develop a foundational vocabulary for humanistic analysis by examining literary genres, periods, traditions, styles, and interpretive approaches. For example, students might examine conventions of the epic, romance, lyric, drama, or satire; distinguish among major literary periods and movements; or analyze how writers employ particular formal and stylistic features. Through discussion, informal writing, examinations, presentations, and analytical essays, students use this vocabulary to describe and interpret literary works accurately and meaningfully.

Learning Outcome 2: Explain the context of an artistic practice, cultural form, artifact, or philosophical idea.

Learning Outcome 2 is fulfilled through the following goals and objectives of the course:

explain how an awareness of literary history affects the understanding and interpretation of a literary work;
place literary works and authors in their precise historical and cultural contexts
explain the relationship between a particular text and its historical and literary contexts;
access electronic and printed sources pertinent to the study of the works and authors examined in the course.

Students examine literary works as historically and culturally situated expressions rather than as isolated texts. Course readings may be supplemented by historical, biographical, intellectual, and cultural materials that illuminate the forces shaping individual authors, texts, genres, traditions, and literary periods. Students might, for example, consider how changing concepts of nationhood shape epic traditions, how religious or political conflict influences literary production, how changing social structures affect representations of identity and authority, or how one literary tradition is adapted in response to new audiences and historical circumstances. Through discussion, writing, research, and other course activities, students explain both the contexts surrounding literary works and the ways those contexts inform interpretation.

Assessment Measures

ENGL 230 uses a variety of assessment measures, which may include a number of the following:

informal writing activities such as readers’ logs, journals and discussion questions;
in-class student oral presentations and recitations;
reading quizzes and examinations on the assigned readings;
in-class or take-home essay examinations on the assigned readings;
researched or non-researched essays on the literary works and authors examined in the course;
research project and/or final essay focused on a single work or several works examined in the course;
short critical essays examining individual literary works within an historical, biographical, cultural or literary context;
short critical essays using specific literary strategies to analyze a literary work;
short critical essays to analyze the formal qualities of particular literary works;
short imaginative/creative pieces that imitate a literary work or style or that extend or revise the point of view of a literary work.

Other Course Information

Review and Approval

February, 2023

October 28, 2026. Effective Fall 2027